Learn How to Create an Epic Cinematic Landscape in Unreal Engine 5

Introduction

Hi! I'm Matan, a.k.a Lightpure. I'm 35 years old. I have been a Graphic Designer and a Digital Artist since I was 12-13 years old, creating in all kinds of media forms. In the last 6 years, I have worked in the digital/social media world, designing videos, marketing, and websites.

In between everything, I was also an Electronic Music Producer, releasing music on top record labels, which also helps me today with mixing sound into my animation.

My journey with 3D has been long, on and off. I started in Cinema4D about ten years ago, mostly in abstract art and artworks for the music industry, but I didn't take it so seriously. Four years ago, when my daughter was born, I realized my real dream was within the visual arts. I decided to quit the music industry and put everything into 3D and graphics in general while still being a Graphic Designer in my daily job.

I returned to Cinema4D, which I was already familiar with, rendering with Octane. When Unreal Engine 5 came out, I knew it was the tool for me. This is when things started to take off. I have attended many online courses and YouTube tutorials, from lighting to color theory to Unreal Engine in general, concept art, animation, and more. Since then, I have been working with music artists and NFT projects, but mostly personal projects, to develop my skills further.

Inspiration & References

The project started with the idea of making something with a moody, filmic look. In the last six months, I have been trying to develop my lighting skills further, and Echoes of Tomorrow was the first time everything came together in the sense that I was completely happy with the results.

Initially, the idea was to create some landscape and build the story around it. Inspiration comes from different sources. I draw it from movies, sci-fi and fantasy series, and even music.

I love that sense of "epicness," playing with scale, and that's what I always aim for, no matter the genre – but I usually create within the sci-fantasy world. I usually don't work a lot with references and don't have a mood board or PureRef open. Sometimes, I would Google for the direction I wanted to go, but I usually look at it for a few minutes, and that's it. I don't like being bound to a single direction, and I'm not a good copycat as well. I love to play with the environment I have in mind and see where that takes me, and develop the story from there.

Composition, Blockout & Modeling

With this landscape type of scene, I usually start with a good HDRI to set the tone. After that, I started to make a landscape in Gaea 2. They recently released their new version, which also has an Unreal Engine integration. You can easily import the Height Maps now; it works perfectly.

I played with the landscape for a while and imported Megascans textures for the snow and the rock while using a smart material for the landscape itself. I added vegetation from various Megascans packs as well using the brush tool. Water simulation was made using Niagara to create a beach that connected the entire scene together. After that, I had a nice landscape setting, but with nothing in there.

I don't model (yet). I usually work with assets like KitBash3D and others. I used their amazing City In The Sky pack for this scene, played with some building assets there, and that's when the story came to life.

Since I used Kitbash's assets, retopology and unwrapping were not needed. I usually play with the materials of the assets and change them around a little, but that's it.

Texturing

As I mentioned above, the textures are from Megascans and Quixel Bridge, and the metals are from KitBash3D. The landscape itself works with layers using a smart material, incorporating all the textures from Megascans really well and playing with the Roughness and Normal Maps to achieve that look.

Lighting, Rendering & Animation

My lighting setup inside Unreal Engine 5 is usually made with Lumen, using an HDRI, Directional Light, and Exponential Height Fog. I use the Volume Scatter to create those nice God Rays, and overall haze.

The HDRI played a major role in this scene. I advise you to invest a lot in this area. I usually play around with the 3 of them, try out a few versions, and pick the one I feel is more suitable. The idea here was to try to create the most natural, smooth lighting I could get, which could support that nice film look I was after.

I also added Animated Fog Cards to have that nice moving fog and to create even more atmosphere. In terms of post-processing inside Unreal, I played a little with the Midtones under Color Grading and lowered the Saturation, again to achieve the filmic/cinematic look, and also leave some room for coloring in the final post-process.

After I'm happy with the overall look, I export the final version as EXR, using Temporal AA and post-process inside DaVinci Resolve. My chain inside DaVinci consists of a few things: Levels adjustment, small LUT treatment, Contrast and Texture Pop, Vignette, Glow, and Sharpen. I also add Natural Film Grain on top of the video layers. The main key is to have small adjustments with each effect. Nothing is 100%, not even 50%, less is more.

The animation was made with simple keyframes. The camera is a simple movement with a camera shake. The propellers are simple rotation keyframes using the linear function.

Conclusion

The piece took around ten hours in total to complete. Most of the time was spent on the lighting and fog, which took trial and error for the look I was after. This was also the main challenge.

The main lesson I learned in this project is that "less is more." The more I was exaggerating things, the worse it got. You don't need to overthink anything, sometimes simple things bring the best results.

I think my best advice for beginners is to try to complete a project every week, stick to a deadline, and grow. Nothing is perfect, and so with that in mind, you don't need your project to be as one. Learn from each project and apply what you learned to the next one. Go with the flow, and have fun!

I recommend these YouTubers for great tutorials, ideas and guidelines: William Faucher, Pwnisher, WINBUSH, Josh Toonen, Bad Decisions Studio, Boundless Entertainment, Joshua M Kerr, Magnet VFX, and Nico Linde.

Matan a.k.a. Lightpure, 3D, Digital and Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine